The Commission had to struggle, however, not only to keep unfit candidates out of office, but to keep in office those who discharged their duty honestly and zealously. After every election there came a rush of Congressmen and others, to turn out the tried and trusty employees and to put in their own applicants. Such an overturn was of course detrimental to the service; first, because it substituted greenhorns for trained employees, and next, because it introduced the haphazard of politicians' whims for a just scheme of promotion and retention in office. Roosevelt lamented bitterly over the injustice and he denounced the waste. Many cases of grievous hardship came to his notice. Widows, whose only means of support for themselves and their little children was their salary, were thrown upon the street in order that rapacious politicians might secure places for their henchmen. Roosevelt might plead, but the politician remained obdurate. What was the tragic lot of a widow and starving children compared with keeping promises with greedy "heelers"? Roosevelt saw that there was no redress except through the extension of the classified service. This he urged at all times, and ten years later, when he was himself President, he added more than fifty thousand offices to the list of those which the spoilsmen could not clutch. He served six years as Civil Service Commissioner, being reappointed in 1892 by President Cleveland. The overturn in parties which made Cleveland President for the second time, enabled Roosevelt to watch more closely the working of the Reform System and he did what he could to safeguard those Government employees who were Republicans from being ousted for the benefit of Democrats. In general, he believed in laying down certain principles on the tenure of office and in standing resolutely by them. Thus, in 1891, under Harrison, on being urged to retain General Corse, the excellent Democratic Postmaster of Boston, he replied to his friend Curtis Guild that Corse ought to be continued as a matter of principle and not because Cleveland, several years before, had retained Pearson, the Republican Postmaster of New York, as an exception. At the end of six years, Roosevelt felt that he had worked on the Commission long enough to let the American people understand how necessary it was to maintain and extend the Merit System in the Civil Service. A sudden access of virtue had just cast out the Tammany Ring in New York City and set up Mr. Strong, a Reformer, as Mayor. He wished to secure Roosevelt's help and Roosevelt was eager to give it. The Mayor offered him the headship of the Street Cleaning Department, but this he declined, not because he thought the place beneath him, but because he lacked the necessary scientific qualifications, and Mayor Strong, was lucky in finding for it the best man in the country, Colonel George E. Waring. Accordingly, the Mayor ap pointed Roosevelt President of the Board of Police Commissioners, and he accepted.